APPEAL Court judges have today significantly increased the sentences for two men who helped the killers of Carlisle man Ryan Kirkpatrick.

Ross Henry Neville, 32, who last December walked free from Carlisle Crown Court with a community sentence for helping knife thug Kane Hull and his accomplice Liam Porter after the fatal stabbing, has been jailed for 22 months.

He must hand himself into Carlisle’s Durranhill Police HQ before 6pm today so that he can be transferred to a prison.

The original 12-month jail sentenced handed to Irthington man Michael Celmins, 33, was doubled to 24 months. An application to increase the sentence of the third defendant involved in helping Hull and Porter, 23-year-old Olivia Memmory, was dismissed.

Her original 19-month jail term remains unchanged.

The revised sentences for Celmins and Neville were imposed this afternoon following a hearing at the Appeal Court in London. The Attorney General lodged the case on the grounds that the original sentences were “unduly lenient.”

All three defendants had admitted assisting Hull and Porter following the brutal 'execution style' murder of 24-year-old Mr Kirkpatrick on September 18, 2021.

At a sentencing hearing in December last year, Neville, from Canonbie, just north of the border, was given the lightest sentence, a 12-month community order with 200 hours unpaid work, a six-month curfew and a £12,000 fine.

Yet Neville’s criminal record, the Appeal Court judges were told, comprised of 42 previous offences, including convictions for violent disorder and dishonesty.

His role in helping Hull and Porter – both now serving life sentences - involved him transporting them on the night of the murder, and providing overnight accommodation, though it was accepted he did not initially know they were wanted for murder.

The day after the murder, the court heard, a text alerted him to the killing and the involvement of Hull and Porter. Yet he continued helping them. He had been summoned by Hull to a rendezvous near Carlisle Airport shortly after the murder, when an eyewitness saw burning items being thrown from his car.

The next day, Neville drove Hull to Newcastle, where the murderer attempted to see his solicitor. Within hours of this, Neville was helping Hull and Porter to search for holiday accommodation.

He was also involved in taking Hull and Porter to Kingstown Industrial Estate a few days after the killing so they could pick up another new car in their effort to remain below the police radar.

Neville’s defence barrister said the defendant had made huge efforts to turn his life around, creating a commercial vehicle business, with a £300,000 turnover.

Celmins helped Hull and Porter by providing them with a stolen Skoda car after they had burned the Volvo they were in when they sped away from Carlisle city centre after the stabbing.

He picked it up in Manchester before delivering it to Hull and Porter while they hid at a hotel in Alston. Paid £150 for his help, Celmins also collected a stolen Audi which the killers had been using and had hoped to sell it, the court heard.

Memmory, from Cummersdale, helped the killers over a longer period – a total of eight days, the court heard. The judges rejected her claim that she acted under the direction of Hull, at that time her boyfriend.

She had no previous convictions. 

In his submission to the court, William Emlyn Jones KC, for the Attorney General, said that the original sentences did not reflect the seriousness of the underlying offence that was committed by Hull and Porter.

He said there was clear support in previous legal cases that sentences should reflect the need for a “deterrent effect” in such cases. “In broad terms, part of the reason that underpins this application is that the sentences [originally] imposed don’t provide a deterrent effect,” Mr Emlyn Jones told the judges.